Sparks in the Flame
by Ilovecsimiami1121
Summary: What if Sophie and Nate didn't meet in Prauge, instead, much earlier? This story goes back to when they are teenagers and Prauge is merely just a point in time when they reunite. Note the M rating for future chapters. I am using the same name as I did in my other Leverage story. Don't like, don't read!


Cassia had grown up a simple farmer's daughter and that was all she had ever known; she lived with her parents in Culleoka Tennessee on a quaint little farm to which her grandparents had left her along with their money after they passed away. But, considering that she was seventeen she couldn't take possession of it until she was legally considered an adult; her grandparents had purchased this farm after they survived the 1940 Blitz in London and moved to Tennessee where they passed the farm onto her parents until she was of age to take possession. Her parents were worried about sending her to a public school due to the fact that the other families that surrounded them did not have the same type of income that they did. She was out in the pasture with her horse Allegra when the storm started to roll in, she loved riding her horse; feeling the wind in her hair and the sense of freedom that rushed through her body as the rain came down in sheets and thick fog started to surround her.

She pulled her horse to a stop and looked around, trying to find even the simplest of hint as to which direction her house was in, a movement caught her attention and she looked around before she laid her eyes upon a figure slumped against a tree; "Is someone there?" She could see the figure move before stepping out of the darkness and approaching her, it was a boy about her age; a little bit taller than she was, his hair was a mess and he looked like he hadn't showered in weeks.

He smiled.

She asked again; "I asked for your name, or are you deaf?"

"Mmm...Defiantly not deaf, Miss Williams."

"I will ask you one more time." Cassia replied, gritting her teeth out of frustration as she mounted off of Allegra and tying her to the tree. "Who are you?"

He inched forwards, standing even closer to her and in that moment he looked suddenly older than her, maybe even a couple of years than she had initially presumed him to be.

"You know who I am, Cassia." He told her, reaching up and moving a strand of hair away from her face. In a swift motion, she pulled back gritting her teeth again; "You are crazy. Get out of my way."

"Crazy?" He said as he studied her. "Or a bastard?"

She laughed; "Both."

"Are you new to these parts?"

"You could say that." She said, looking down to adjust her clothes which were now wet due to the rain that fell from the sky. Today she had put on her ASTM/SEI certified helmet that her parents had purchased her with a navy blue polo t-shirt that now clung to her body like plastic wrap, her double-stretch pants and riding boots. She looked around, looking to get the heck away from this boy but could find no sign that her house was in sight; she looked back to him.

"You are a little far out for your comfort?"

She gave him no response.

"I'm assuming you live on the farm at the end of this meadow? The one that your grandparents left you when they moved here with your parents?" His eyes sliced into her, searching for an answer which made her heart beat erratically inside of her chest, his smile spelt trouble and it was a promise.

"How did you..." She cut her sentence off when he started talking.

"Well, considering that you only have the best riding gear that money can buy; you have a considerable amount of money. And, the second part is known to everyone in these parts."

"What is your name?"

She received a mysterious smile again, she asked more sternly; "What is your name?"

"You can call me, Nate."

"Well..._Nate_." She said, over pronouncing his name. "It looks like the storm is picking up, you should head home."

He dropped his gaze from her to his feet; "It's dark, I'm not sure which way home is."

Cassia sighed, weighing her options; she knew how her parents felt about her bringing strangers into the house. But, he technically wasn't a stranger anymore and she couldn't leave him out here in the cold just to get sick and potentially hypothermic. She scoffed, telling him not to be a baby and climb on. After a while, he climbed on behind her, snaking his arms around her mid-section and pulled her close to him; he gripped her tightly to him as they rode through the meadow, jumping the fence that outline the pasture and riding to the barn. Taking a towel off of a hook, she handed it to him before taking Allegra to her pen; Cassia removed the saddle from her horse before taking the brush in her hands and running it over the horse, she took some hay and put it in Allegra's feeding trough before exiting the barn and shutting the doors behind her.

They trudged through the grass and rain until they reached the porch of the house; there was a thick deck wrapped around the house, it had two stories and the outside was made out of red brick and white wood. He followed her example as they both removed their shoes outside and placed them on the rack before entering the house, the walls of the entrance way were a deep red and the floors were hardwood; the dining room was the same, the other rooms on the main floor where slightly different than those too, they had sort of a crème colored wall and hardwood floors. It was a very elegant house compared to his mother's where he was currently staying.

He had always told him..._Nathan, money can't buy you happiness._

Well, he knew for sure that he would be quite happy living here.

"Cassia." A voice came from the kitchen. "Home already?"

"Yeah, well...It started to rain." She replied, motioning for him to follow her into the kitchen.

"Oh, I see." The woman replied before stealing a glance at Nate before going back to what she was doing. "Cassia. You know what your parents said about bringing strangers into the house."

"He's not a stranger. His name is Nate."

"Oh, you know his name." She said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. "Well, he had better be gone before your parents get home. We don't want a repeat of last time."

"Can you at least get him some hot cocoa, Alicia? He's awfully cold from being out in the rain."

Alicia laughed; "Alright."

It didn't take Cassia long to change out of her wet clothes, peeling them off of her skin before tossing them to the floor and walking into the shower. The hot water burnt her skin at first, and then she adjusted to the temperature of the water, letting the steam fill the bathroom as the water warmed her body. She reached across the shower and picked up the bottle of shampoo, she squeezed a large amount into her hands before rubbing them together and running them through her hair, washing all of the grease and dirt out off her long dark hair.

She had received her long dark hair from her mother's side of the family while receiving dark brown eyes from her father. Not too long after she looked at herself in the mirror, deciding that she was horribly unattractive, she changed into a pair of sweat-pants and a t-shirt before making her way down the stairs and into the kitchen where she found him sitting at the counter drinking the cocoa.

"What do you do in your free time?" Cassia asked him as she proceeded to pour a cup for herself.

"I don't have free time."

She shot him a dirty look, causing him to laugh.

"Alright, alright..." He said, throwing his hands up in defeat. "I take pictures."

She smiled slightly as she looked down, fidgeting with her cup.

"I wasn't finished; also enjoy reading a girl's blog about the pros and cons of being homeschooled along with her posting funny stories about what happens when you are homeschooled. She posted one not too long about how her parents are making her choose between Stanford, Yale and Harvard for University."

It was quite obvious at this point that he knew her better than she had thought; the big question here was _how_ did he know? Had she met him somewhere before and didn't remember where? He looked outside and saw that the rain had let up, telling her that he should head home. He got up out of his seat, leaving the mug of hot cocoa on the counter and walked out the door; she ran after him.

"Wait! Nate!" She called. "You didn't answer my question!"

Laughing, the turned around pulling a pen out of his front pocket and wrote something on her hand. It was a phone number. More importantly, his phone number. Cassia looked down at the phone number he had written on his hand and made a fist over them, she wanted to tell him that she wouldn't call him because she didn't have time to do so; that would be a lie. He knew that she spent her free time riding; he knew that she had tons of free time because her parents were always away in other states or working.

She sighed and walked back into the house, pausing on the doorstep just to look back to find him walking towards the highway before entering the house and shutting the door behind herself.


End file.
